


This Picture

by 50eyes



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Agender Kaworu, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Guardian Angels, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Non-Binary Kaworu
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-26
Updated: 2015-01-26
Packaged: 2018-03-09 00:39:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3229697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/50eyes/pseuds/50eyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shinji was rescued from death by a beautiful boy claiming to be his 'guardian angel'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Picture

I remember the day I should've died too clearly.

It was dark, as if the sky was reflecting my own emotions in the vast swathes of black clouds. They rumbled and growled like live animals. Their voices were thunder and their claws were lightning.

The water was black, too. When my head went under the surface, it was difficult to sense the difference between up and down - the sky above was just as murky as the depths below, and the wind had whipped the river into such a frenzy that the currents thrashed and writhed, snapping me around like a child might throw a doll.

I could hear voices calling out to me, but it was just the blood loss, blurring the boundaries between reality and imagination. I struggled desperately for breath and felt the horror of water ripping into my lungs. The voices became louder, almost distracting, still incomprehensible. I didn't want to die. I was drowning.

For years afterwards, I would wake up screaming from nightmares of how I coughed and retched as I tumbled in that river, how rubbish and seaweed tangled my limbs and every time I opened my mouth to breath, another wave would crash over my head and I would choke and wail as instincts took over my body and I breathed in lungfuls of the murky blackness. It didn't take long for me to fade out of consciousness. My last thought was probably something stupid - a stupid, pathetic and short end to a stupid, pathetic and short life. 

(Or so it should've been)

* * *

 Before that day, my life had been monotonous, but I wasn't especially unhappy. My father was useless and my mother was dead, but I managed well enough by myself, and I never minded the lonely stretches of time when my father was out doing something at his lab.

I never really understood what my father's job was, but it sounded boring and scientific.

Asuka would pick me up every morning without fail, always loud and obnoxious - we were the oddest of friends and barely ever managed a civil conversation, but she was surprisingly reliable compared to my tempramentality. She was a genius at school work, too. People were always shocked by that.

"Shinji!" When she had called that night, Asuka's voice was garbled and fuzzy, the telephone wires crackling in the wind. "Do you still have my textbook from yesterday? I need that back!"

Not even a 'hello' - typical her.

"Um, maybe?" I said. "Ah, yeah, it's right here..."

"Well, give it back!"

I sighed, knowing where this was leading. "How can I give it back over the phone, Asuka? Can't you wait until tomorrow?"

"What are you, stupid? We live five minutes away from each other, asshole, you just don't want to get wet! Cycle over here or something!"

"Do I have to?"

"It's your own fault for not giving it back at school!" And with that, she hung up the phone.

Feeling bullied, I didn't even bother to put on a coat or say goodbye to my father - I had no idea that this trip was destined to be my last, after all. I tucked her precious textbook under my arm and set off. If it got soaked, it was her own fault for making me go out in such dismal weather.

The next part of the story isn't really that interesting. I went wrong, the bike slipped, I fell over the handle bars and into the river and smashed the back of my head against some rocks. I'm a teenager, not a philosopher, but it seems that important things happen in such simple ways, it's difficult  to acknowledge them for what they are. When I hit the water, I could feel only disbelief. Surely I couldn't die so easily.

 Even when my head went under for what should've been the last time, and I felt myself dying, felt my brain burning, there was a sense of detachment inside me. I couldn't believe it.

I reached out towards the blackness, fingers groping in the swirling emptiness...

And then came the plot twist.

At first, I thought that I was hallucinating. The water above, thick and inky as my despair just seconds ago, began to glow a soft white colour. Like a rising sun.

 _Shinji_ , a voice said.

It was different from the other voices. Never had I heard someone speak so carefully to me.

I closed my eyes. Maybe I even smiled. The currents down there were calmer than near the surface, and I remember thinking to myself that it wasn't so bad to be dying. The water didn't even tear my lungs anymore. I couldn't feel anything.

I was okay.

  _Shinji._

The light got brighter. It was almost blinding, even through my eyelids. 

_Sorry, Shinji. I won't let you die._

I faded into the darkness.

* * *

 Lots of darkness after that.

I thought I was at a hospital. I wasn't sure.

It wasn't very comfortable.

Felt a bit cold.

"Excuse me, Miss, please do not sit on the bed. It spreads germs."

"Okay, okay."

Shuffling. I recognised one of the voices. Asuka.

"Please don't put your feet on the bed, either. No, Miss, please do not touch the patient's drip, it's very unhygienic."

"God, am I allowed to do anything?"

So... I was alive? That seemed strange.

I tried to open my eyes and blacked out.

* * *

 The next time I came around, it could just as easily have been an hour or a month since I was last conscious.

It was still a hospital. A nurse explained to me that I was in an Intensive Care Unit, that I had suffered a basal skull fracture against some rocks when I fell into the river and that he was going to sedate me because many of the tubes attached to me were very uncomfortable. I nodded. He smiled.

* * *

 It didn't take very long for them to transfer me into a general ward. Fears about brain damage were shown to be unfounded and I started a course of antibiotics, as the skin on my head had been broken, meaning infection was possible.

I stayed, suspended, in my bubble of detachment, never quite believing that any of this was happening to me.

"God, Shinji." Asuka said on one of her frequent visits - I think that she used me as an excuse to skip school. "God, Shinji, how did you do it?"

"Do what?"

"You know! How did you manage to get out of the water? Did you really swim against that current, with your skull cracked open? That's pretty neat!"

I knew it was her way of complimenting me. Feeling guilty about insisting I biked to her place, she had taken to holding her tongue and acting almost nicely to me, never actually apologising. It annoyed me. I wanted her to flounce around like normal.  

"Well, Shinji? Are you even listening to me?"

"Oh. No."

"I'm taking the time of day to come and visit you, and you don't even bother to engage with me? What am I, a disposable thing for you to whine at when you get upset and ignore when you're not? I asked how you got out of the river!"

I smiled slightly. "Actually, my memory from that point is pretty fuzzy, but you know what I do remember? I thought that I was being rescued by like, an angel."

"Hah! Really?"

"Yeah, it was glowing white, and I could hear a super clear voice, like..." I raised my arms above my head dramatically, and continued in a whispery voice still croaky from the ventilator I'd been on. " ' _Shinji, you will not die today_ '!"

Shaking her head, she stood up to leave. Visiting hours were almost over. "I suppose you really did hit your skull hard, huh?"

"Yeah? You think?"

* * *

If I thought that nearly drowning was surreal, then how can I even begin to describe what happened after I left that stuffy hospital? Drowning is what you heard about in the newspapers. _Teenage boy falls to his death in cycling accident._  The type of headline you skip over without even registering.

Drowning was an unfortunate reality. Kaworu was the stuff of pure fiction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had an idea for a while now, so I decided to go ahead and write it.
> 
> Does it read well? Should I bother to continue? Future chapters would be much longer.
> 
> EDIT 08-06-15 this fic is abandoned! I'll be posting a new nge one soon!

**Author's Note:**

> [My tumblr](http://www.sphinx-3.tumblr.com)


End file.
